


Shoot Me Down

by LMX



Series: Comment Fic [14]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot goes back to Moreau, M/M, Run-On Paragraphs, Run-On Sentences, Songfic, Violence, it's intentional, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 00:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13938837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: When I grew up I called him mine





	1. Bang Bang

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter is a Songfic to ~~Nancy Sinatra's~~ Cher's Bang Bang (Shot Me Down), followed by a Comment fic for Sheryden - "Eliot goes back to Moreau"

They have been good friends for longer than any other members of Damien's rather fluid support system. They tell tales of their time together as boys, and Damien will not voice the confession of how he loves the way Eliot's eyes crinkle at the sides, reminiscing of their childish heroism. They admit their naivety in the face of warfare, but cherish it all the same. They re-enact scenes of that war for their newer friends, and Eliot always plays the hero and Damien the invading force and when Eliot leaps through the air firing imaginary bullets from his fingertips Damien always falls theatrically to the ground amidst their audience's cheers and laughter. It brings a bright grin to both of their faces, and Damien revels in how young it makes Eliot look. Lighter. They share space as they have always shared space, and Damien never mentions the way Eliot had run before the fighting was over and Eliot never mentions how much Damien had changed when they met again.

Damien sees how much happiness it brings Eliot to see him with Evie. It is as if by introducing him to the woman he loves, Eliot has repaid that debt that is never spoken of, bought back his honour. Damien is entirely besotted, but it doesn't take him long to realise he misses having Eliot in his space. He loves Evie, but Eliot has always been his first commander. The leader of his vengeful armies. His friend. Within a year Evie has confessed to seeing that desire in him, and they are sharing space once again. Evie is placed on a pedestal between them, basking in their shared adoration; all things are shared between them. Eliot has never been more passionate, or more committed to Damien's cause. He laughs when they tell Evie of their exploits, he cries when he admits to Evie why he had to leave; putting voice for the first time in Damien's presence to the things which had haunted him. He swears he will do anything for them. Anything they ask of him. They are untouchable, a unity. One. Damien tells him the plan and he knows without any doubt that Eliot will be with him. There is nothing to suggest what will come next in Eliot's eyes.

The church bells were still ringing in the space above them, but the sound was dull and flat in his ears. Eliot never arrived with the rings as he was supposed to. When Evie had come through the doors there had been no one on her arm, she had been pale and pristine in white. Like a ghost. She had run down the aisle to him, thrown herself into his arms. She had been followed by their enemies, and Damien had known in that moment how totally he had been betrayed. Eliot had long been the name to send shivers down the spines of men; almost a decade at Damien's side. His silent threat. His attack dog. It hadn't made him any less a part of his acquired family. He was the one who knelt at his feet while he worshipped Evie in turn. The one who defended her when he could not. The first bullet coloured her wedding dress, and his shirt as though he was an extension of her. The bullet didn't reach him, but he sank to the floor with her as though they were both killed in that moment. There was no tearful goodbye, her eyes glassy and empty even as the first screams reached him. His congregation have turned on the ones breaching the church, but it's too late to kill the one responsible. Eliot was already gone.

It is 'later' now. They are both older. His hair is shorter, Eliot's longer. He no longer treasures people, and Eliot... He cannot believe Eliot loves anything anymore. There are different things in both of their eyes. Damien still does not understand. He tests Eliot because he expects to see something there that will give him away. He cannot still be that man Damien knew - the one who loved him and loved Evie, did everything that they asked loyally and unquestioningly like the most obedient of pets, and yet condemned them both to death. He cannot be that man and still look Damien in the eye as though the world has not changed irreversibly since they last met. He cannot be that man and still look at Damien as if he might have loved him once. He whispers 'why?', as if the answer matters, and Eliot looks at him gently, eyes wide like they might be about to kiss. 'To get away,' he replies. Damien will tear down the world around him, for that answer alone.

==

I was five and he was six  
We rode on horses made of sticks  
He wore black and I wore white  
He would always win the fight

Bang bang, he shot me down  
Bang bang, I hit the ground  
Bang bang, that awful sound  
Bang bang, my baby shot me down.

Seasons came and changed the time  
When I grew up, I called him mine  
He would always laugh and say  
"Remember when we used to play?"

Bang bang, I shot you down  
Bang bang, you hit the ground  
Bang bang, that awful sound  
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.

Music played, and people sang  
Just for me, the church bells rang.

Now he's gone, I don't know why  
And till this day, sometimes I cry  
He didn't even say goodbye  
He didn't take the time to lie.

Bang bang, he shot me down  
Bang bang, I hit the ground  
Bang bang, that awful sound  
Bang bang, my baby shot me down...


	2. Old Friend of Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Big Bang Job and the San Lorenzo Job, the graphic violence escalates a little here, folks.

In all the long hours that made up longer days and weeks and months of the three years that Damien Moreau had been a guest in the San Lorenzo tombs, he had never imagined this moment in his future. Not in his wildest fantasies.

Eliot - his Eliot, whom he thought lost to him forever - snuffled uneasily into his protective shoulder, the nightmares coming already despite less than an hour's sleep.

Damien had given up falling asleep with the man in his arms, better to watch over him while he caught a brief respite and wake him before the nightmares could, catching his own sleep after Eliot had left to spend the rest of the night working obsessively on the computers, searching ceaselessly for clues.

Eliot whispered a first 'no' even as he started to thrash against invisible restraints, and Damien took him by the shoulder and moved to sit them both upright in the bed. Talking gently in his ear, soft Croatian in a hope to separate his words from the ones already screaming in Eliot's head, he roused him.

Eliot was hard to wake tonight. The exhaustion of the last six months had long caught up with him and now was destroying the man from the inside out. He was perpetually lethargic, irritable, distant. He was pale and ever more thin.

Eliot woke finally, and with a scream. He tore himself from Damien's grasp - tipping from he bed onto his hands and knees and then bolting moments later for the toilet to throw up the day's meal. This wasn't new, so Damien let it happen without reacting. Eliot's hair wasn't long enough to need holding back anymore; another part of himself surrendered in payment to the beast that lashed its whip across Eliot's back. To be faster, more efficient, more deadly. He didn't hide behind his hair anymore, didn't need the disguise. No one crossed him and lived.

"Will you come back to bed?" Moreau asked as Eliot washed out his mouth.

"Maybe later" he lied in return, and headed out the door, towards the information tech building across the camp.

-

Eliot had freed Damien - had retrieved him from the tombs under the noses of the very people he had helped to put him there - because he needed guidance, he needed leadership, and regardless of anything else Moreau had been, he was the best leader he'd ever worked under.

He had made his goals clear, if not what would happen after they were complete, and Moreau had promised that he would use everything he had to help see them achieved. Eliot had trusted Moreau once, and with everything else lost it came so easy to him to trust again. They worked together, just the two of them, and Moreau's influence and contacts started to prove his worth almost immediately. Eliot had never intended to fall back into Moreau's bed, but once he had he hadn't resisted it. He needed this too. This feeling of contact, of connection with another human being. He needed all of this, and Moreau was helping him.

After three months they hit a wall with their intel, the money started to run out, and Moreau cautiously suggested that they do a handful of side-jobs, just to get the money coming back in again. Turned out Eliot needed that too. Something to do that wasn't sub standard hacking, intimidation and running around the world chasing shadows. He needed a reason to keep moving, and the work Moreau started handing him gave him that. He couldn't remember when they started hiring people in. When their hideout became an encampment, when he started carrying an arsenal and went back to being known as Moreau's right hand man.

He wasn't sleeping - could he blame his confusion on that? He wasn't sleeping and it felt like he hadn't slept in years. He wasn't sure how he was still functioning, only keeping down food every few days, only remembering to eat when someone shoved food in his direction. He was powered by the nuclear core of rage in his stomach.

He was falling apart. Moreau was holding him together.

-

"Eliot? Eliot, please wake up." Parker sounds scared. Sophie is crying in the distance, and Nate is trying to reason with the man in the doorway - black suit, bulge of a gun at his hip. Eliot can only open one eye, the other is swollen shut.

His vision is spinning in that one eye anyway, which doesn't help him make sense of the way Hardison is staring at him, all glassy-eyed.

"Keep your attack dog down, Ford. Or another one dies." There's three armed men in the room - something big and high powered. He should recognise it, but he's nauseous and bleeding and his mouth feels full of cotton wool. There's blood dripping from the butt of one of the guns and Eliot thinks it might be his. No one's shot him yet though. Big fucking mistake.

His head's still spinning when some kind of timer goes off and Eliot blacks out again as the retort of the shots rattle his brain in his skull.

Nate's voice is odd when he returns to consciousness again, but there's a tinny ringing in his ears so he can't understand the words. Sophie's gone quiet - holding on to Hardison, her face pressed against his chest where they're crumpled together on the ground. Parker's very still, eyes fixed on the two of them. Maybe she's worried Sophie's gonna steal her man.

Eliot wasn't sure he could move. Maybe they had shot him. Maybe Nate's tone means 'get the fuck over here, Eliot'. The man in the doorway pulls his gun, but Eliot couldn't move.

He manages 'no' before the world falls away as quickly as the flash and Nate's short fall to the ground. "Eliot, molim vas, probudite."

-

It had been eighteen months, but it didn't matter really how long it had been. Eliot was coming for the ones who took his team away from him. Took his family. What ever it took. Whatever allegiances he had to make to do what needed to be done... One day he would find them.

And no one would be able to protect them when that day came.


End file.
